I've been gaming for as long as I can remember. One of my earliest memories was playing Super Mario Bros 3 with my Dad on the NES, and leaving the system on for a month solid just so we could actually finish it. Ever since then, I've owned a system every generation (sometimes more then one per generation) and I've experienced a whole ton of different games. The problem is, this current generation things have seemed just.... off somehow. So I suppose I am just trying to figure out why. It's not as if there are no good games coming out, since there are, and it's not like I'm just not playing video games anymore because I am, but something doesn't seem right... maybe writing about it will help me figure out what it is.
Okay so here's generally where I stand. Back when I was younger, I'd pretty much just play platformers. Mario, Donkey Kong Country, Super Star Wars, I actually had quite a few. Then one day a friend brought a game over that just sucked me in, I couldn't believe how different yet fun this game was to me. That game was The Legend of Zelda: A Link to the Past for the SNES. Yep I'm sure everyone whos ever played a Super Nintendo has at least seen this game. For a lot of gamers it was a real milestone in our gaming lives, and really set the bar for what a game could be. After that game I seemed to hunger for more from my games. I played Pokemon endlessly with my friends trying to catch them all, exploring every corner of the map, trying to get to that truck so I could push it aside and catch Mew (an exercise in futility) but still I started to wonder if more could be done with these games. Around that time the PS1 and N64 era was beginning and I had to make a hard choice. Playstation or Nintendo?
Despite being a Nintendo fan all my life, never owning anything else, I chose the Playstation. Why? Because it had what I thought I was looking for. Games with stories of epic proportions. My first game of this kind was Final Fantasy 7. At the time I questioned how I'd missed the first 6 of these games but I got the game anyways after hearing about it from a friend of mine. I got home and as I started playing more and more I became absolutely captivated by it's story. It was like something I'd never experienced, a story telling medium that movies or books couldn't match for me. Not only were you watching these characters lives unfold but you were also helping them along, nurturing their strengths and helping them build towards their eventual goal. The Playstation was the system that changed who I was as a gamer. I still enjoyed the platformers from time to time, but they didn't have the same impact anymore. I needed story, characters, emotions. I needed to get that extra level so I could beat that dragon that had been kicking my ass for 2 hours. And the thrill of beating a game that took me over 60 hours was unmatchable. After 60 hours I became so attatched to those characters that I just didn't want it to end, but it always did, and I always found another game to get attatched to.
Then the PS2 came along and kicked it up another notch for me. While the PS1 games were classics and always will be, the PS2 was able to tell its stories just that bit better with it's graphical capabilities. Characters could have emotions on their faces, epic battles could unfold right before your eyes and things that you could only see in cutscenes before were now playable. There's a reason I own more PS2 games then any other system. I was in highschool and I still feel like this was the prime of my gaming life. If I were on a desert Island and could only bring one system and 5 games with me, it'd be a PS2 for sure. The games were more complex, the graphics were gorgeous, and genres were being redefined. Action games like Devil May Cry and Zone of the Enders, Metal Gear Solid 2 and 3 redefining the way a shooter could be played, RPG's like Shadow Hearts and Xenosaga taking the traditional RPG elements I'd grown to love and expanding on them, while delivering movie like cinematic stories. It came to a point where I started to wonder, what could PS3 possibly do other then make things prettier? What could be done with these new games that a PS2 couldn't do, other then graphics and more explosions on screen?
And that's sort of where I am now. There are barely any RPG's to speak of, definitely no Japanese ones worth mentioning. Storytelling in general seems to have gone down the tubes, barring a few exceptional games. I look at my PS3 collection and I ask myself which games I'd replay and to be honest, there aren't that many. I look at my PS1 and PS2 games and I see tons that I'd love to replay but replaying a game isn't the same as experiencing something new. The problem is, nothing new has seemed to quite live up to the past. There are some fantastic games don't get me wrong, but a lot of them are barely 10 hours long if that, and for every 1 good game theres 20 that shouldn't have ever seen the light of day. What happened to gaming? Why am I having such trouble finding new things to get excited about? I've been playing a lot of fighters lately, because they're the only thing that I've been able to keep an interest in.
I've rambled for long enough, so I'll end it like this. Am I just an old retro gamer complaining that things aren't like they were in the old days and I just need to accept that my beloved hobby has changed, or are my fears founded? Has the market been way to over saturated with Call of Duty and Halo clones? Or is the JRPG better off dead? Sometimes I can't tell anymore and I'm not sure where I stand. So maybe after reviewing some newer and older games I'll be able to figure it out.
